


you'll never walk alone

by mjscorner



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Helen Cho, Dead Peter Parker, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grey's Anatomy References, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Major Character Undeath, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Pepper Potts, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:34:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28221003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjscorner/pseuds/mjscorner
Summary: "What-what're you doing here?!"Tony didn't have an answer. He had no idea what he was doing here.But...Peter was here.And that gave him answer enough.ORtony suffers a heart attack five years after the snap and sees peter’s ghost.*this fic and the dialogue is based entirely on season 17 episode 4 of grey’s anatomy*
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 97





	you'll never walk alone

**Author's Note:**

> i highly recommend going back and watching the episode of grey’s that this is based on so you get a good idea of what i’m trying to portray lol

Tony wasn't sure how he ended up on his back on the kitchen floor.

All he knew was that one minute he was washing dishes, replaying Cap's conversation with him earlier that day about time travel, and the next he was holding Peter's picture in his wet hands, seized by a shooting pain in his chest before he collapsed to the ground.

He gasped and choked on the ground, eyes wide even as Pepper's frantic voice echoed throughout the beams of the cabin. 

"Tony, what was-Tony? Tony! Oh, my god!"

His eyes fluttered shut as he felt Pepper kneel beside him, placing two fingers on his carotid.

"FRIDAY, call Cho and get us a chopper to the compound. Now!"

" _On it. Happy is on his way for Morgan. Boss's pressure is elevated: he appears to be experiencing a heart attack._ "

"Tony," Pepper cupped Tony's face. Tony fought hard to stay conscious, using all of his might to pry his eyelids open but to no avail.

Pepper choked on a sob.

_No. I'm here._

"Tony, dammit, do _not_ die. Please, please don't die."

She leaned down and planted a kiss on his forehead.

Tony succumbed to her touch and embraced the darkness.

⎊

Upon waking up, Tony saw orange.

A bright, peaceful orange sky loomed above him as he blearily opened his eyes and felt damp sand on his back, heard the distinct crashing of waves in front of him.

He frowned, sitting up with a groan and taking in his surroundings.

A beach. A beach with black, sparkling sand that overlooked a never-ending ocean of orange water as it reflected the sky above it. He turned behind him and saw great mountains looming, mountains he couldn't see past. 

He looked down at himself. He wore a white button-down shirt and jeans. A pressure in his chest temporarily clouded his judgment, but he could at least make out the ridiculous get-up.

"What is..."

He examined the sky again with narrowed eyes. There was no sun or cloud in sight, nothing that could be making the sky so glaringly _orange_. It would be beautiful if his heart weren't beating out of his chest and pounding behind his eyes.

Heart. Heart attack. 

_Did I have a heart attack?_

Is that why he was here? He was _dead_?

Great.

He rose to his feet with a grunt, temporarily intoxicated by the familiar smell of the ocean. 

There was nothing. No one. No one around but him.

That's when he saw it.

Behind him, a small lifeguard stand stood in front of the ocean, painted white and practically glowing in the melancholy light of the sky above. Tony narrowed his eyes as he made out the appearance of a person dressed in a white shirt and jeans just like him, the cuffs rolled above their ankles. They leaned against the wooden railing of the stand, staring out toward the ocean.

They looked peaceful. Content.

Tony didn’t care, clearing his throat and waving a hand in the air.

"Excuse me!"

The figure didn't move, not at first. Tony took a few steps forward. He sighed, whistling with this thumb and pointer finger.

"Hey, you!"

The person turned. Their eyes landed on Tony, and they were walking forward, leaning on the closest railing with eyes of disbelief.

And suddenly, the blaring orange of the sky and the crashing of the waves faded.

Because Tony knew those eyes anywhere. He knew those curls, knew that face, knew that _kid_.

"...Peter...?"

Tony couldn't bring himself to utter the name above a whisper.

But Peter could.

"Mister Stark?!"

His breath was taken clean out of his lungs. The pressure in his chest suddenly evaporated into thin air. 

He sucked in a few composing breaths before he was gasping, blinking away the fogginess in his eyes.

"Peter?!"

He had to yell to be heard above the waves, but by the looks of it, Peter heard him just fine. He was smiling, even, tilting his head in awe as Tony stood glued to the sand. The kid let out a laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.

"What-what're you doing here?!"

He didn't have an answer. He had no _idea_ what he was doing here. 

But... _Peter_ was here.

And that gave him answer enough.

He was dead. Or dying. Or somewhere in-between.

Peter seemed to take his contemplative silence as an invitation. His smile grew as he hopped over the railing of the lifeguard stand and landed in that familiar, stupid Spider-Man pose before jogging toward his mentor.

"Peter!"

Tony was sprinting toward Peter before he knew any better. His chest ached as he extended hungry arms, sucking in a breath when Peter finally crashed into him.

"Oh, my god," Tony gasped, sinking to his knees with Peter still in his arms. "Oh, my god, _Peter_."

"M'ster St'rk," Peter laughed wetly, sniffing in the crook of Tony's shoulder as he held fistfuls of his shirt. Tony laughed, too, taking hold of Peter's curls and kissing his kid's forehead.

"Kid, I...”

Peter shook his head. He knew what was coming.

“I'm so sorry."

Peter pulled out of the hug, eyes looking up questioningly at Tony. Tony brought his hands up to cup Peter's face like he was the most precious human in the entire universe.

"Why are you sorry?"

Tony shook his head, his lip trembling.

"You should not be here."

Peter shrugged.

"Neither should you.”

⎊

"Pepper."

Pepper shot up from her seat as Helen approached her, eyes apologetic.

"Helen, what's going on?"

”Well, it’s a heart attack,” Helen sighed. “We had to put him in a medically-induced coma for the time being to avoid any more stress. We can’t run the risk of adding any more stress to his heart.”

Pepper nodded numbly, staring at the ground deep in thought as she chewed the inside of her cheek.

”...Pepper, has Tony done any...extraneous activities lately? Anything out of the ordinary?”

Pepper thought hard, wide eyes reverting to the ground frantically as she searched for an answer.

"No. No, no, not that I know of, I don't-"

Then it clicked.

Cap. Natasha. Scott. They had come to visit at lunch that day.

"Oh," Pepper exhaled heavily, bringing a hand to her forehead. "Yes, actually. Steve came to visit for lunch. Natasha and Scott were there, too. He hadn't seen them in years until today and wouldn’t talk about it all day after. Could that have caused it?"

Helen's brow creased as she turned to Tony's door. "That could have resurfaced some unwanted trauma, yes. I'll run some tests, but...it's looking a lot like stress cardiomyopathy."

"Oh." Pepper brought a hand to her chest and fiddled with her necklace. "Well, what-what does...what is that?"

"...I think it’s Peter."

Pepper blinked. "Peter?"

"Do you remember the last time Tony was in the hospital for his heart?"

"Uh..." Pepper closed her eyes. "Early-early August, I think."

"August tenth. That's Peter's birthday."

Pepper fell back into her chair. Helen stood for a moment before taking a seat beside her.

"Every time Peter is mentioned, or thought of, or grieved for...Tony gets a rush of adrenaline caused by stress, which has likely built up over the years. His pressure rises, he has chest pains...and he ends up in the medbay."

Pepper stared ahead, eyes glossing over with tears before she took Helen's hand in hers.

It made perfect sense. Why Tony would collapse after Cap had suggested the idea of bringing Peter back. Why the mere image of Steve would bring with it stress and grief and heartbreak and remorse.

"Peter was..." she paused. She inhaled a shaky, calculated breath, her eyebrow quirking up as it dawned on her. "I’m the love of his life, but...Peter was his best friend. His _soulmate_."

The thought of a sixteen-year-old Peter dying in Tony's arms on a foreign planet in a foreign galaxy...it made Pepper want to have a heart attack, too.

"And then, he just...died."

"It's grief," Helen nodded apologetically. "His heart stops because he's grieving for Peter."

Pepper exhaled, bringing a hand to wipe at her cheeks.

"So...what now? How do we treat him?”

"...I wish I knew."

⎊

"Am I dead?"

"I don't know."

Tony furrowed his brow as he sat with his back against the railing of the lighthouse stand, staring up at Peter in an awestruck state. Peter looked down at his mentor, lip quirking in a smile before he was sliding down the railing and sitting across from Tony.

"I think maybe you're dying. You're not dead, though."

Tony hummed. When he wasn't fiddling with the cuff of his ridiculous shirt, he was staring at Peter, reveling in his presence and praying he didn't fade away like a dream.

"Is this...real?"

"Eh."

"'Eh'? What do you mean 'eh'?"

"None of this is... _real_ ," Peter shrugged, staring out at the orange ocean. Tony sucked in a breath, swept away by the mere sight of him. "Or, maybe it is. It's the reality stone. Maybe this is all just a disguise. Maybe not. It is nice, though."

Peter closed his eyes and took a breath as a breeze passed by.

"Peter..."

"I wouldn't wanna leave either."

Tony blinked. "What, the beach?"

"No. Your family. I wouldn't want to die, either."

Tony's world somehow slowed more than before. He closed his eyes, guilt weighing him down to the core of the Earth.

Or, wherever they were.

"Peter...you're my family, too. You know that."

"I know," Peter shrugged. "You've got a great family, though. Morgan is...perfect."

"Yeah," Tony sputtered. "Yeah, she's...she's amazing."

Peter nodded, reveling in the thought.

"You never met Morgan."

Peter shrugged. "I check in sometimes."

Tony's heart clenched.

_He checks in sometimes._

It was comforting as much as it was devastating. He leaned forward, staring at the floorboards as he fumbled to say something, anything that would somehow make the past five years okay, something that would make up for the fact that Peter _died_ and Tony _didn't_.

"Peter, I'm-"

"Don't apologize," Peter interrupted hastily. He tilted his head with a smile. "There was nothing you could've done."

"I could've tried harder. I could've stopped you from getting on that ship."

"I still would've died."

Tony closed his eyes, pursing his lips as he hung his head.

"I could've tried harder."

"No," Peter shook his head. A feeling of peace overcame him as he looked up at the sky. "You know, I've...I've learned to stop replaying scenarios in my head. Nothing we could've done differently would have kept me alive."

Tony swallowed around the giant lump forming in his throat.

"You haven’t aged a day since I last saw you."

Peter hummed. “You got older, though.”

”Did not.”

"You're ancient."

Tony let a laugh escape him, though that thought from before lingered in his head that Peter hadn’t changed one bit since Titan. Comforting and crushing all at once.

"Do I get to choose?" Tony said suddenly. "Do I decide if I...go back?"

"I don't know. I didn't."

Tony nodded, hanging his head. Peter continued to look at his mentor, lips parted as he calculated his next thought.

"I would've stayed."

Tony looked up at that, eyes wide and heartbroken as Peter smiled at him with slightly foggy eyes, smiled to conceal the sorrow underneath.

"If I could've."

Tony's heart clenched as his eyes remained glued to his Peter’s before he was lurching forward and taking Peter in his arms again, savoring the way it calmed his racing heart.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry._

Peter got the message.

⎊

Pepper sat by Tony's side until Bruce arrived.

He slid open the glass door of Tony's room, ducking to fit in the doorway.

"Oh, Bruce," Pepper exhaled in relief, closing her eyes and bringing a hand to her chest. "Come, come in."

"I came as soon as I heard,” he said, leaning down to place a kiss on her head. “How is he?”

”Cho says he’s stable, but...I don’t know. I guess he’s gotta stay in the coma because of all the pent-up stress.”

“Hm. So he's in a coma? And she thinks stress caused this?”

”I think reminders caused this. Reminders I have to get rid of if we want Tony to live through the night.”

”...You can’t throw out of every picture of Tony and his kid, Pep. You’d have no pictures left.”

”Not the pictures,” Pepper sighed. “Not even Peter’s old suits.”

Bruce frowned in confusion, tilting his head.

”It’s...everyone else. It’s Steve, Scott, even Nat. They were family, Bruce, but they can’t be anymore.”

”Wait, woah, what’re you-what’re you saying? You’re gonna," he breathed a laugh, "ban them from visiting ever again?”

Pepper inhaled shakily, turning to look at her husband with sad eyes.

”Not _ban_...But for my sake, and most importantly Morgan’s...they have to keep their distance.”

⎊

“You guys never had a funeral.”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat at the declaration as they walked along the shoreline of the beach. The breeze had gone and the waves had stopped, as if the beach were frozen in time.

He turned to look at the kid, who stared at the sand as he kicked shells with his head hung.

”Of course not.”

”Why ‘of course not’?”

Tony sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Because you didn’t... _die_ , Pete. You vanished. They’re not the same.”

”Die, vanish, it doesn’t make a difference. I still ended up here.”

Tony frowned. “So, what? I’m dead? Is that why I’m here?”

”I can’t know for sure,” Peter shrugged. “Maybe you’re dead. Or maybe you’re in-between. Maybe you have a connection to this place. To me.”

”Understatement of the century.”

Peter chuckled, kicking another shell into the water. Tony mirrored Peter’s joy with his own unwavering adoration.

”No funeral,” Tony elaborated, “but, uh...we named a tree after you. At the cabin. It’s big and green and Morgan swings on the rope I tied to it. You’ve got a stone next to it, too.”

Peter closed his eyes contentedly. “Yeah. That made me happy.”

Tony’s eyes softened at that. He hugged Peter by the shoulder for a moment, planted a kiss on his head, and closed his eyes before they kept walking.

”I just wanted you to...move on. To be okay. I thought a funeral would help.”

”I didn’t think you’d want one. And I couldn’t host one, Peter. I was devastated...but then I was okay.”

Peter said nothing. Tony eyed him for a moment, hoping Peter didn’t detect the lie between

”Even with my parents, and Obadiah...I was sad. And then I wasn’t.”

Peter hummed. “Eventually you go on.”

Tony thought about that for a moment, a terrible thought occurring to him. 

“...That’s what Morgan and Pepper would do,” he concluded. “If I die. Eventually, they’d go on.”

Peter faced Tony at that, chewing the inside of his cheek in thought.

“It’s different for them.”

”How?” Tony felt ridiculous asking the ghost of his sixteen-year-old questions about life, but somehow he felt Peter had more answers than he did.

”Well...you didn’t go on.”

”...What?”

”Not really,” Peter said, turning back to the ground as they walked. “Not like you used to.”

Tony furrowed his brow, the pressure in his chest returning.

”Some grief is...heavier than other grief. Sometimes it moves through you, and sometimes it-it just gets stuck. And you carry it.”

Tony closed his eyes, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“Like you do,” Peter said quietly.

Tony clenched his jaw and said nothing, his head hung as he came to a stop. Peter stopped with him, standing with a worried brow.

"You carry it. You still do, even right now."

"Of course I do," Tony whispered, barely audible. "When you died...”

He took a breath, bringing glassy eyes to meet Peter’s. He just stared at first, biting his cheek and contemplating a response.

“Part of me did, too."

Peter frowned sadly, that all-knowing smile diminishing just barely.

"I’m sorry, Mister Stark.”

Tony breathed in, turning away from the kid with guilt-ridden eyes.

Those were Peter’s last words. 

”Don’t apologize, kid. Ever.”

They continued walking, going only for a few minutes in the silence and comfort of each other's presence.

"Sometimes, I try to shake it out of you."

Tony's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Like, you know..."

"Like..." his lip quirked in a smile. "You _haunt_ me?"

"Well, I mean, if you want to call it that."

Tony let a laugh escape him. "H-How?"

"You know, just...turning the TV on when you're sitting on the couch alone. Knocking your drinks over when you're being self-deprecating. Making FRIDAY announce random cat facts."

"Holy shit," Tony gasped. "That was _you_? I've been trying to get her to stop for three years!"

Peter laughed. "I did a lot of things. But that was my favorite."

Tony's laugh grew, a hand on his chest. Peter was laughing, too, ears red.

"I just want you to...let go. I want you to know, I'm...I'm still me, even if you can't touch me or see me...I'm still me."

"...You're not," Tony said, his laughing fit having diminished as that familiar feeling of guilt applied pressure to his chest again. "Peter, you're _dead_."

"No, I know."

"And I can't let go, Pete. Not ever. I can't just...I can't ever let go."

"Not forever," Peter sighed. "I just wanted you to let go...until we met again."

Tony scoffed. "This? Right now? We aren't meeting again.”

"I'm not talking about right now."

"When else would we meet? Where else would we be besides the after-life?"

Peter hummed to himself, his lip quirking in a knowing smile.

"Home."

Tony stopped, brows pinched together in confusion. Peter turned to face him, that knowing smile still plastered on his face.

"Because you know how to bring me back."

⎊

Helen let out a sigh as she collapsed into the chair beside Tony's bed, throwing her head back and staring at the ceiling.

Pepper had gone to check on Morgan a few hours ago, though not after a verbal promise from Helen that Tony wasn't going to die.

Just stuck. Grieving. Slowly, slowly killing himself. 

Slowly dying.

She let out another sigh that echoed throughout the room, leaning forward and staring at the man for a moment.

"You've got to stay in the coma until you release all of this stress, Tony."

Silence, as expected. Helen licked dry lips, bringing a hand to take Tony's.

"Your friends, your family...your _doctors_ , they're- _we're_ worried about you. And I'm trying to put on a brave face for them, Tony, I am, but...I'll admit, your heart isn't strong enough to keep taking these hits every day."

She sniffed, hanging her head.

"Maybe it's just these five years, maybe not...but for the first time...I don't know what to do."

Tony furrowed his brow in his sleep with a groan. Helen's head shot up.

"Tony? Tony, can you hear me?"

"I know..."

"Tony?"

"I know, Peter."

Helen leaned back in disbelief, studying with wide eyes the way Tony's face relaxed, his heart rate slowing down ever so slightly. 

Peter was killing him...and saving him, all at once.

⎊

"What did you mean by that?"

Peter ignored him, releasing an exasperated sigh as he leaned against the smooth rock behind him and stared out at the ocean.

"Do you still go out in the suit sometimes?"

Tony blinked, mirroring Peter's actions and sinking against the boulder.

"...No," he said. "Not since you died."

Peter scoffed. "Spider-Man died. Not Iron Man."

"I know."

A pause. Tony longed to ask that burning question again, but Peter seemed to ignore the tension.

"That's what I miss the most about being alive."

Tony turned sadly, eyes glued to his kid as Peter smiled at the sand, calculating his words and reminiscing in the memories.

"Leaping off buildings. Falling through the air without worrying about hitting the ground. Dancing till you drop. Laughing till you cry. Food. Textures."

Tony exhaled in regret, reaching over and taking his kid’s hand. Peter's nose scrunched up as he laughed.

It shattered and repaired Tony's heart all at once.

"The crunch of cereal as you eat it from the box."

Tony let a laugh escape him, leaning his head back to look up at the sky. Peter followed suit.

"The feeling of clean sheets and a good pillow at the end of a _long_ day." Peter closed his eyes, mimicking the feeling.

"Peter...baby, what did you mean? When you said I know how to bring you back?"

Peter snickered, cheeks slightly flushed from the nickname. "I don't have to tell you anything you don't already know."

"I don't know _what_ I already know. But it sounds like you do."

Peter placed a hand behind his head, turning toward Tony. That knowing smile remained as always, though there was a seriousness in his eyes that kept Tony's eyes locked.

"I know what you're thinking," he said. "You're thinking it would be easier to just stay here with me. Not go back."

Tony froze, the guilt and pressure in his chest intensifying.

”I’m just...so tired.”

That's when he heard Helen.

The beep of a monitor. The shuffle of a chair. Echoing, pulsating in his ears.

" _We're worried about you_..."

Peter closed his eyes sadly as he listened. Tony sat up straight, looking around. He couldn't find the source of the voice. He could only feel it.

" _I'll admit...your heart isn't strong enough to keep taking these hits every day_."

Tony closed glassy eyes.

"And choices," Peter exhaled. " _So_ many choices. So many ways to live a life. That’s what I miss.”"

"I..."

"If you stay here...it might break them."

"...I know."

Peter nodded, turning back toward the sky.

"But if I go back...I'll die."

"If you go back...you'll be saving hundreds of billions of lives."

⎊

"You can't just get rid of the reminders."

Pepper cupped her mug of coffee with cold hands, avoiding eye contact with Happy across the table.

"I...You think I want to? I don't want to get rid of the reminders."

"What do you want, then? Because your solution is not the answer, Pepper. It's not."

"I want him to live," she whispered. "As long as we've been together, it's been implied that he would die young, that I would be left alone. But we have a child now. And I'm sick of constantly worrying I'm going to be left alone. I can't do it anymore."

Happy laughed softly. "I'm surprised he's still alive."

"Me, too."

Happy narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment, staring off in the distance. Pepper finally looked up, waiting for him to say something, anything.

"It killed me, too."

Pepper blinked. "What did?"

"Peter. May. It killed me, too. When they died."

Pepper bit her lip, reverting her gaze back to her cup.

"They were family," she sniffed. "And then they were dead."

"We never even had a funeral."

"You know why we couldn't."

"I don't understand it, but yeah."

"Tony has had at least twenty grief-related heart attacks since he came back from space, Happy. A funeral would kill him."

Happy stared at the ground in thought, fidgeting with his own mug of coffee on the table.

"Not having one is killing him just the same."

⎊

"I was so mad at you. At first."

Peter frowned as he sat across from Tony, digging a hole in the sand to make room for a sandcastle.

"For leaving you?"

"Yeah. And for getting on that ship in the first place."

"I didn't know I was gonna die," he snorted.

Tony shivered subtly at the thought, leaning forward to help Peter build a tower.

”Yeah, well. Then I realized it was all my fault anyway.”

”No, it wasn’t.”

Tony said nothing at first. He glanced up at Peter momentarily, watching in that same disbelieving state of awe the way Peter studied the sand, the way he stuck his tongue out in concentration. 

"Do you regret...becoming Spider-Man?" Tony asked, ignoring the way Peter snapped his head up at the question. "Helping people...at the expense of yourself?"

Peter stared at Tony for a moment before his gaze reverted to the horizon. Tony glanced up from their sandcastle for a moment, studying the way that knowing smile returned to Peter's face.

"Does that matter?" 

Tony stared back, watched Peter's unwavering smile and his eyes as they slowly but surely glossed over.

"You did the same thing," he sighed, returning his focus to the sand. "That's why you're here. Because you're Iron Man. Because of your big heart."

"...Yeah," Tony snickered. "I guess. But I didn't have a heart until you came around, so it's your fault."

Peter threw his head back with a laugh. "How do you figure?"

Tony thought for a moment, his smile fading just slightly as he traced his finger in the sand and registering the fact that the sand was black, that it sparkled beneath the radiance of the sky.

"Because you...went all-in for everybody."

Peter's smile fell just barely. Tony continued.

"Your friends, your family...the jackass that didn’t listen to you when you insisted the vulture was dangerous and you took down a plane for him. A woman on the street who bought you a churro."

Peter shook his head, awkwardly drawing a line in the castle with his finger.

"You think that didn't somehow affect me? You changed my life, kid."

Peter looked up, ears red as the teariness in his eyes returned with a vengeance even as he continued to avoid eye contact. Tony swallowed around the lump in his own throat, wanting nothing more than to reach for his kid and completely demolish their sandcastle by pulling him in for a hug.

"I didn't say it then," he said guiltily, "and I hate myself every single day for that, but it's true."

Peter bit his lip in thought, molding the base of their tower with his hands. Tony watched him for a moment before joining in.

"After the ferry, I...I thought you would never forgive me. But then...those lab days together, the movie nights and the sleepovers, the missions we took together...you changed my life, too.”

It was Tony’s turn now to stare at the sand in thought, trying in vein to force down the lump rising in his throat.

_I also ended it._

”You changed when I was gone,” Peter said suddenly, as if he could sense Tony’s thoughts. “You take walks in the forest. You cook. You do the dishes.”

Tony hummed, bringing his knees to his chest. "Like I said, kid, you changed my life."

"My _death_ changed you," Peter corrected. "Morgan changed your life for the better. I was afraid you would never be happy after the snap, but Morgan changed that."

Tony tilted his head. "You know that’s only half true. And when did you get all...wise and all-knowing?"

"I've been here for five years, Mister Stark. You think about things."

Tony's face fell, his heart sinking in his chest. Peter sensed the tension, closing his eyes and ceasing his construction of the castle momentarily.

"Is it just you? Here, on this beach? This place?"

"Yes."

"...What about your aunt? Your friends?"

"They're...somewhere else, I guess."

Tony's brows creased together in concern, sad eyes locked on Peter as he moved forward and attempted to take Peter's hand in his.

"I hope they're not alone," Peter said with a smile. "Just...somewhere else."

Tony took Peter's hand in his, squeezing it reassuringly.

"Let me stay."

Peter laughed wetly. "Mister Stark-"

"Let me stay here with you, Peter, please. Let me die."

"Even if it were up to me, you can't die. You're not finished yet, Mister Stark."

"Dammit, Peter, I can't-" Tony inhaled shakily, squeezing Peter's hand again in his own. "I cannot... _leave_ you again. I won't."

"Mister Stark, you're not leaving me. We're going to see each other again because you know how to bring me back?”

“How?” Tony threw his hands up in frustration. “Tell me how. I can’t get you back until you tell me how the hell to bring you back because-“

Tony sucked in a composing breath, closing his eyes and fighting the way his lip threatened to tremble, the way he fought with every fiber of his being to hold Peter and never, ever let go.

”Because don't think for a second I haven’t tried everything already. Don’t think I haven’t spent the last five years wrecking my brain trying to find a way to bring you home.”

The tears got the better of him then. Tony squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head and feeling that same pressure he’d felt on his chest intensify.

”I can’t-I can’t _breathe_ without you, Peter. I can’t live. I won’t. Not if I go back.”

A great, booming thunder shook the grounds of the beach. Tony’s head shot up in horror, watching as their sandcastle crumbled to nothing. 

Peter’s heart visibly sank at the feeling, wide eyes staring at Tony apologetically.

”You’re waking up.”

If Tony thought he couldn’t breathe before, it was nothing compared to the tightness gripping his chest now. 

“No. No, no, no.”

Peter closed his eyes, his own lip trembling. “Mister Stark...”

”No, please, I-I need more time,” he sobbed. “I can’t-I can’t _leave_ you here-“

”Mobius strip.”

Tony stopped his frantic panic, wide eyes narrowing for a moment as he stared at his kid in confusion.

”W-what?”

”Mobius strip,” Peter repeated, a half-hearted smile tugging his lip though it didn’t reach his devastated eyes in the slightest. “Inverted.”

Tony stared at the ground for a moment before a quiet gasp escaped his lips, eyes the size of dinner plates gluing themselves onto Peter’s.

”You’ve gotta go now, Mister Stark. The sooner you go, the sooner we see each other again.”

Tony, despite his yearning desire to stay, was nodding.

He wanted to go back now more than ever. 

He had the answer. He _finally_ had the answer.

Another boom of thunder shook him out of his numbed state as he looked up at Peter, heart shattering into a billion pieces as watched Peter hang his head and hug himself.

”Oh, Peter...”

”Sorry,” Peter shook his head with a sniff. “Sorry, I just-I just-“

Tony was lurching forward and pulling Peter into his arms before the kid could continue, taking a fistful of his hair and closing his eyes.

“I’m gonna get you out of here, kid,” Tony promised in a whisper, kissing Peter’s head. “I promise. I’m gonna get you out.”

Peter nodded, sniffing into the crook of Tony’s shoulder as he melted into Tony’s touch. 

“I love you so much, Peter.”

He hadn’t been loved this fiercely in so long.

That must be why it hurt so badly when Tony vanished in Peter’s hold before he could say I love you back.

He collapsed onto the sandy floor where their sandcastle used to be, bringing his knees to his chest and feeling like the smallest soul in the universe.


End file.
